About CLIMB:

Go for Vertical’s CLIMB/Summer 2019 is an accelerator program for ideation and early-stage startups. It’s a 12-week evening course that will bring you, the region’s best and brightest aspiring entrepreneurs, into a unique program where you will learn how to develop and validate your business concept, and how to build a prototype to prove it out for as little as $5k.

A PROGRAM DESIGNED FOR NEW PHOENIX-BASED STARTUPS

Phoenix has an amazing ecosystem for entrepreneurs and startups, especially in tech. With CLIMB, we are providing a new program that will help everyone in our community gain better access to it.

It’s something we’ve done successfully with Austin and Tucson-based startups since 2015, and yours could be next.

HOW IT WORKS

CLIMB starts with you and your idea. We expect you to come to the table with a startup concept that you’ve thought about for a while. Ideally, you’ll already have domain expertise in the area, a solid business or social impact idea for it, a reason to use technology to scale it, and the drive and fire in your belly to make it happen.

Then, meeting once per week over 12-weeks, we’ll put you through a training course on Vertical, our framework for developing products and taking them to market. It starts with a deep analysis of your business idea using a lean startup framework. Then we’ll teach you how to scope out a strategic prototype for your business, and show you how to start building it. After 12 weeks, you will be ready to validate your startup idea with a real business model and a prototype of your platform.

If you’re successful, then you’ll be ready to take your startup to the next level — pursuing funding for or bootstrapping your company, and following the Vertical model you’ve already created to develop the full platform and take it to market.

IT’S A MERIT-BASED AND EFFORT-DRIVEN PROGRAM

We don’t believe in admissions tests, or deciding if your idea is any good on our own. Instead, we provide you with an opportunity to learn how startups and product development work, and to succeed or fail based on your own work effort and merits.

So although each CLIMB team will be tracked on their progress in the course, no one will be kicked out, and no one will fail. You will decide how far you and your startup will go. We’ll just help you to get there.